Transmission of images to remotes sites is known. One application for transmitting images to remote sites is a security system, in which one or more cameras are connected to a central station for monitoring.
Conventional security systems typically employ one or more cameras pointed at a particular field of interest, with a plurality of monitors in the central station being used to view the images from the cameras. The cameras are mounted on pan and tilt mechanisms, which allow security personnel to change the field of view of the cameras in order to view a particular field of interest.
While conventional security systems are useful in observing a desired field of interest, they require mechanical pan and tilt mechanisms to change the field of view of the cameras. In addition, if multiple personnel are viewing an image from a camera, only one person can control the field of view to be observed.
Another conventional method for transmitting images to remote sites is utilized in web-based applications. In the conventional method, persons accessing an image database or a live feed from a remote web server download images from the remote web server.
Web-based applications that operate in the above manner are inefficient in that a user at a remote site may only be interested in a portion of the image generally available from the web server, while the entire image is transmitted to the user. The transmission resources of the data path between the remote site and the web server are therefore wasted by transmitting image data that the user has no desire to view.
Therefore, a need exists for a method of providing images to remote sites that allows users at remote sites to independently view desired images, without wasting transmission resources.